The God Both Far and Near

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The God Both Far and Near – Isaiah chapter 57, verse 15

For this is what the high and exalted One says –
    he who lives for ever, whose name is holy:
‘I live in a high and holy place,
    but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.
Isaiah 57:15

The God Both Far and Near

God reveals Himself in the Bible as both far from us (“transcendent”) and near to us (“immanent”).

What is our relationship to this divine, everlasting God?

There are two extremes we can run to:
A) He is only transcendent – so we can’t know him, or anything about him.
B) He is only immanent – so he is just like us.

In Isaiah 57:15 these two “extremes” are tied together for us. High and Holy, yet dwelling with the humble and contrite.

At which point does the air around us become the sky above us? We cannot say. So it is with God.
Transcendent: beyond all limitations, incomparable, infinite. He is like a father, but without a human father’s limitations.

Immanent: not far from us, not aloof, not unknowable. He is not far from any of us.

²⁴‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
Acts 17:24-27

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
Psalm 145:8